Are boys and girls receiving different financial lessons?

How comfortable are you answering basic financial questions?

According to one survey, only 35% of men and 30% of women are able to answer those types of questions; including how simple vs compound interest works.

Robbyn Scribner, the assistant director of Utah Women and Leadership Project at Utah Valley University, says the difference might be a result of tradition.

She says teaching girls financial literacy in Utah, in the U.S., and worldwide is not the same as for men.

“It’s absolutely critical,” she says, “for girls and women to have the same financial education boys and men have.”

The financial education should begin when children are little, Scribner says.

“Research has shown we give girls chores that are inside the home, part of their regular, everyday work of the home,” Scribner says.

Girls receive chores, like doing dishes, that do not typically result in a paycheck. The boys, on the other hand, are doing work which is traditionally paid, such as mowing the lawn.

Instead, Scribner says, we can teach children to place a value on their work.  And to pay girls the same amount of money as boys for the same chore.

To hear more about solutions to this issue and more financial education, listen to this and other podcast episodes of “Money Making Sense” hosted by KSL Newsradio’s Heather Kelly.